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Joaquin Phoenix... 'Acting is like bungy jumping You want to
get a rush'Photo: AP Photo

Getting a rush

Helen Barlow | March 1, 2008

IF YOU believe Joaquin Phoenix, he is not ambitious, talented or
particularly handsome. "I don't think I have any value," he says.
"I'm always surprised that a director would want me, to be frank. I
always think there's someone far more talented and interesting and
better looking and taller or smaller than I am."

This is far from the truth. The twice Oscar-nominated
33-year-old, who riveted audiences as the emperor's ruthless son,
Commodus, in Gladiator, and Johnny Cash in Walk The
Line, says there have been three important movies in his career
but he won't name them.

To Die For, which also gave Nicole Kidman her
breakthrough, is surely the third. Still, no matter how big or
promising the projects, he says he wouldn't have made any of them
if there hadn't been quirks in the characters and, more
importantly, humanity in the stories.

"I try to find the finest qualities in people and I certainly
try and find that in my characters. I try to give some
understanding to what leads to their destruction."

Even the Gladiator behemoth was essentially a personal
story, he says, while admitting that he found the experience so
intimidating he was almost unable to perform. "Russell [Crowe] and
Richard Harris sat me down early on, because I was so nervous,"
Phoenix recalls. "I was so nervous in fact on the first night of
filming that we shot for two hours without running any film through
the camera. Literally my entire body was shaking. So they just said
to me, 'Calm the f--- down! It's just a f---ing movie. Relax!"'

Phoenix surrounds himself with down-to-earth types, both in his
life and work. His latest movie, We Own The Night, marks his
second collaboration with Walk The Line director James Gray
and actor Mark Wahlberg, with whom he worked in The Yards
(2000).

"It's like three brothers getting together," he says. "We have
such different lives and upbringing but for some reason we connect.
I don't know why that is. Mark is a really easy person to love;
he's a really straightforward, unpretentious guy. I admire him
greatly as an actor but he infuriates me how effortless he makes it
seem. If we suddenly get new dialogue, I need to go back to the
trailer and practise it for an hour but he can do it off the
cuff."

We Own The Night is set in 1980s New York, where the
Russian mafia has taken control of the drug trade and the police
are fighting a losing battle in the war the mob is waging. Two
estranged brothers, the sons of the deputy police chief (Robert
Duvall), live their lives in opposing worlds. Wahlberg's Joseph is
a cop and the heir apparent to his father's job, while Phoenix's
nightclub manager Bobby hosts thugs every night even if he has not
committed a crime himself. When his father is murdered by the mob,
however, Bobby becomes determined to make amends. It was important
for Phoenix to show distress at the funeral of his character's
father.

"I try to experiment as much as possible," he says. "Rather than
look to the heavens, the standard Hollywood reaction, I thought I
should show it physically. I knew I couldn't piss myself as no one
would see it," he says. "But then I remembered when I was young and
a man had been washed up dead on a Mexican beach, I had seen his
brother was vomiting. James agreed it would be very powerful and we
decided that's how I should react."

But how did he make his body do that? "Lots of cereal and lots
of milk, and I downed two glasses of water in a row. Then I jump up
and down, put my hand down my throat and wiggled around until I
vomited. James had to cut some of it because it was a bit too much.
It became a scene about an actor vomiting."

Phoenix values his time working with Gray and says the
writer-director taught him a valuable lesson: less is best.

"Often actors take on way too much; they feel they have to sell
the entire movie in every scene. It's usually because of their
insecurity, yet James has a confidence in himself to acknowledge
the silence."

Phoenix enjoys a similar relationship with Hotel Rwanda
director Terry George: last year the pair worked together again on
Reservation Road, a drama exploring a father's grief after
his son is killed in a hit-and-run incident. But instead of taking
on the role of the driver (which was eventually adopted by Mark
Ruffalo), Phoenix insisted on playing Ethan, a conservative
university professor whose son is killed.

"I felt like I'd played Mark's role plenty of times before. I
liked that Ethan had feelings he wasn't able to express and I
wanted to see how that manifested in his character."

Similarly, his edgy bad boy in We Own The Night is a long
way from his garrulous real-life persona.

"I like movies that push me," Phoenix says. "Acting is like
bungy jumping. If you're going to do it, then you want to get a
rush out of it. It will never be just a job to me."

A vegan and animal-rights activist, he disapproves of glitz and
glamour and is uncomfortable with being a movie star. He doesn't
watch his own movies. "I just think there's a number of dangers in
doing that, at least there is for me. I don't ever really want to
see myself as the camera sees me."

Joaquin (pronounced Wha-keen) was one of five children who were
all encouraged to perform from an early age by their vegan,
Children of God missionary parents. At first it was busking in the
streets but, when the family left religion in Puerto Rico and moved
to Los Angeles, the children became the breadwinners, acting on
television and in movies.

"When we were younger our parents encouraged us to express
ourselves. It may have been my brother learning to play guitar at
five years old, or my sisters all singing but I don't know what the
hell I did. I was just a wreck. I couldn't really sing. I tried to
sing, I could boogie woogie," he laughs. "It was a close family, we
were all very happy playing. You just followed in your siblings'
footsteps, no matter what it was. The younger ones followed."

At one time he changed his name to Leaf to be more in tune with
his elder siblings, River and Rainbow. But he had changed his name
back by the time his adult career kicked off. He first appeared on
television as a child and at 12 made his film debut as a precocious
youngster in SpaceCamp. He had a second starring role the
following year in Russkies, and was set to become a young
star in 1989 after impressing in Parenthood.

Yet by 15 Phoenix was dissatisfied with the scripts he was being
offered. His parents had just divorced and he decided to go and
live with his father in Mexico and to travel. He joked to one
interviewer that he went on a trek to lose his virginity. He
succeeded.

In 1995, he worked with director Gus Van Sant on the black
comedy To Die For. Two years later he earned rave reviews
for his role in Inventing The Abbotts. His portrayal of
Commodus in Gladiator won him his first Oscar nomination for
best supporting actor; his second nomination arrived with Walk
The Line, a role for which he had to learn to play the
guitar.

"I now have a greater appreciation for music," he says. "It used
to be a total mystery to me. I like it because I don't really have
any hobbies. I hate the beach, I don't like travelling, I don't
like doing the things that most people do to unwind."

Phoenix has remained single and has no children. "I don't know
why; [the time] just hasn't been right yet. I'm too selfish to be
in a relationship and you need stability in order to have kids. My
life is too inconsistent right now. I'm cultivating as many
different experiences as I can and I feel that would limit me in
some sense.

"Somebody with kids would say that you get a whole slew of other
experiences that are amazing. Look at my best friend, Casey
[Affleck, Ben's Oscar-nominated brother, who is married to
Phoenix's sister, Summer]. He's done the best work of his career in
the last year and he has two kids and he's an amazing father and
husband. So it's possible. It just isn't for me."

After living in the same New York apartment building as Casey
and Summer for many years, he now lives in Los Angeles. He has
taken up directing music videos and is "absolutely loving it. I'm
killing a few careers," he says in his self-deprecating manner.

Is it possible to live a normal life?

"Normal life?" he asks, mulling over the idea. "Considering what
I'm being paid as an actor, a normal life is subjective. Another
33-year-old's normal life is very different. But there is nothing
specific that I do.

"When a film wraps I can't get off the set fast enough. I don't
talk to anybody in the business for a couple of weeks. I really
don't do anything."

Phoenix is currently shooting his third movie for Gray, Two
Lovers, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Set in Brooklyn, it's a
romantic drama where his character is torn between the woman his
parents want him to marry and his beautiful neighbour.

With Gray he's back in his comfort zone and, given his
particular artistic sensibility, that's not a bad place to be.